Osaka boy found stabbed to death; mom leaps to death when confronted by cops

OSAKA - A male high school student in Nishiyodogawa Ward, Osaka, was found dead with multiple stab wounds in the corridor outside his apartment Monday afternoon, and his mother jumped to her death from a nearby building soon afterward when approached by investigators, police said.

The police are investigating the case as a possible murder-suicide.

Responding to an emergency call by a neighbor, police officers found the body of Rikiya Hidaka, 16, at around 3:40 p.m. He was covered in blood and had been stabbed several times in the neck and elsewhere.

Hidaka lived in the apartment with his mother, Yuka, 55. At around 7 p.m., police found her crouching down near the seventh-floor emergency stairwell in another apartment building about 300 meters west of the family’s building.

As an investigator asked her to identify herself, she jumped from the building and fell onto shrubbery 15 meters below. She was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Security camera footage showed a woman with a bloody left hand leaving the Hidaka’s apartment building at around 2 p.m. Monday. The police suspect it was Yuka Hidaka based on the clothing she was wearing.

The knife believed used in the teen’s stabbing has not been found.

The apartment building is in a residential area about 500 meters west of JR Tsukamoto Station on the Tokaido Line.